Slither

It's Devil's night, and my fiancee and I are in Blockbuster, about 10 minutes to close, already disappointed that they didn't have a copy of "Trick 'R Treat" left. We're desperate for a scary movie, and, naturally, the horror aisle has been pretty brutally picked over. As time runs out, we decide to be impulsive and just grab the first movie we see that doesn't look like total garbage. Then, like a beacon of light, on the back of "Slither," I see Nathan Fillion's face. Thirty seconds later we're out the door.

Allow me to explain. As a fairly unspiritiual person, Nathan Fillion is probably the closest thing to a deity that I have. After watching "Firefly," I give a little "squee" every time I come across him in any other media (like "Halo: ODST" or "LOST"). I realize that I was putting my faith on the line by picking up what had the potential to be an incredibly crappy movie, but at the time, I just couldn't imagine Nathan Fillion streering me wrong.

The movie itself was better than I expected, but the pleasant surprise also had to give way to certain disappointments. Most successfully, this movie is really funny. Most of that is grace à Mr. Fillion himself, with his deadpan reactions to the increasingly ludicrous situations he finds himself in. He is the comedic core of the movie. The other high point of hilarity is Gregg Henry's Mayor Jack MacReady. I'm not ususally one for stock characters, but Henry's slimy, misogynist, incorrigible, disassociated public official had some of the best lines in the script: ("Praise *Jesus*? That's fucking pushing it! This shit's about as far from God as shit can get! Either of you ever seen anything like that? You even heard of anything like that? Huh? Me neither... and I watch Animal Planet all the fucking time!")

Naturally, a horror-comedy also needs to be good at the horror half of the equation. I don't really know about scary, but "Slither" certainly is disgusting. The character that becomes the host of an alien is disgusting, the worms are disgusting, the guy getting cut in half and having his entrails spill out is doubly disgusting, and the worms' birth scene is just plain traumatic. Even if it doesn't scare you, you're sure going to be uncomfortable.

Where all of this awesome starts to fall apart has a lot to do with Elizabeth Banks. I have seen Elizabeth Banks in more different media than any other actor in the last year (40-Year-Old Virgin, Slither, W., Zack And Miri Make A Porno, Role Models, Scrubs), and every time, I convince myself that she's better than what I'm seeing onscreen. I always think she was funnier in something else, but I'm starting to resign myself to the fact that she may not be as enjoyable as I think she ought to be. Nonetheless, she plays the part of Starla Grant competently here, struggling with her wifely devotion to the gross host-man. The problem isn't so much with her portrayal, more with the character itself, because everything that she does is motivated by cliche and forward plot momentum. The romantic sub-plot involving Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Fillion doesn't need to be there, and rather than playing with it, or at least having fun with them, "Slither," goes the route of lame rather than parody.

Imdb.com tells me that an original draft had a different ending, which I believe would have been much more in tune with the rest of the movie's tone, and would take care of a big part of the issue I just mentioned. So, if you see "Slither," watch it, read the original ending, act it out in your head, and pretend that that's what really happened. If you do that, you've got a much better movie.

Rating: 3.5 stars